In a recent PEW Research survey, Facebook and YouTube landed in the top spots as the most popular social media sites. The young people (18-24 years-old) are more likely to use Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter as well as make more frequent visits per day compared to older adults.
Facebook continues to grow with 68% of adults that are now users. Other than the video-sharing platform YouTube, none of the other sites or apps measured in this survey are used by more than 40% of Americans.
We’ve read a lot about smartphone addiction and social media obsession, yet according to this survey over half of Americans (59%) said it would not be difficult to give up social media.
By contrast, 40% say they would indeed find it hard to give up social media – although just 14% think it would be “very hard” to do this. At the same time, the share of social media users who would find it hard to give up these services has grown somewhat in recent years.
Other takeaways from this survey:
- Pinterest remains substantially more popular with women (41% of whom say they use the site) than with men (16%).
- LinkedIn remains especially popular among college graduates and those in high-income households. Some 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn, compared with just 9% of those with a high school diploma or less.
- Some 88% of 18- to 29-year-olds indicate that they use any form of social media.
